Monday, February 22, 2010

Ubuntu 9.1 install on Toshiba M200 Tablet

I recently received a used M200 Tablet PC. It had Winxp installed but I wanted to take advantage of Ubuntu's plethora of free software so I decided to install Linux on it.

My gut told me to install Mac0s86 or FreeBSD on it. I eventually decided on Ubuntu because it is one of the easiest O/S's I have installed. If I could get Ubuntu working on the tablet, I would decide if another O/S would be worth doing in the future.


I excitedly brought the machine home with the power cord/brick in hand. It came with a multi dock, but it was so huge, I left that at work. I brought out my handy set of DVD/CD install media when I realized that there weren't any optical drives on the machine. In fact, there aren't any optical OR floppy drives! I figured, ah, easy enough, I will just make a jump drive installer or at least play with the O/S via a jump drive. I setup a drive, plug it in, and to my surprise, it isn't recognized! Next step, check the boot menu. There is no option to boot to USB on this computer. Time to surf the net.



This project that I expected to last all of 2 hours, had blown up in my face. I was now researching information on this laptop. Apparently, there are a select group of USB DVD/CD drives that this machine will use to boot itself into. There were mentions of using a USB floppy drive, but I didn't have any at my house. I did see some mention of PXE installs, but I had not tried doing that before. It was getting late and I had to work the next day. Plus, the multi dock was at work, and hopefully the DVD drive on that will allow me to install via DVD.

The next morning, I come to work really early. I figured I could try and get this thing working before I started work. I plug it into the dock, insert the DVD and boot up. It boots into Windows. I check the boot sequence in the BIOS and try again. No luck. I press F12 during boot up so I can manually choose my boot device. Still no work. Apparently, you can't use the Multi Dock either. I have time, so I do more research online.

I find a USB floppy but I decide to go with a PXE install first because I had not tried it before and it might prove a good learning experience. The only machine I had available was a PIII Windows laptop. I follow the instructions from a site I find on the internet (http://hugi.to/blog/archive/2006/12/23/ubuntu-pxe-install-via-windows). It is very well written and easy to follow. I suggest you visit that if you are considering a similar install.

After setting up tftp and playing with the IP settings the M200 finally booted to an Ubuntu install screen.

I ran through the install pretty easily except for one brainfart.

The first few times I ran through the install, I got an error stating that the archive link was wrong (or something like that). I realized that the machine would need to connect to the internet to install the O/S in this manner. I ran through the beginning of the install again, and when it came time to connect to the archive, I pulled the crossover cable that I was using and plugged it into my network connection. Of course, this didn't work because the machine was still using it's network credentials it pulled from the windows machine.

I ran through the install again. When the screen appeared that asked what network interface I was going to use, I pulled the crossover cable and put in the network cable. I let the laptop autoconfigure the network settings and followed the onscreen prompts. After everything was done, I had a working Ubuntu install.

Since this is a tablet PC, I was hoping to be able to play with some of the goodies that tablets are known for. First thing was getting the stylus working but it seems to have worked out of the box. If yours does not work, I found the following blog that was pretty informative - http://blog.aliencam.net/tag/wacom-names/.

The other issue was screen rotation. This was something I really wanted working because... Well, this is a tablet computer. I took the information I got off of this really informative blog - http://pdasite.pl/kitor/blog/index.php/linux-on-toshiba-portege-m200/ to get rotation working.


In conclusion, the amount of information about Ubuntu and Linux made this much easier than it could have been. It was still more work than I wanted to spend on a laptop install but it was a good learning experience. Most everything works. I am working on tweaks to make using the tablet more user friendly. Things such as scripts to run the screen orientation, keyboard shortcuts, etc.

Sunday, February 21, 2010

1977 Toyota Celica Liftback (ra29)


To those that don't know I own a 1977 Celica. I've owned it for a couple years but the transmission slips really bad so I would rarely drive it.

Here's some quick specs.
1977 Toyota Celica
Chassis code ra29
Engine 20R 2.2L inline 4
Automatic (soon to be manual)
Rear live axle
weight aprox. 2600 lbs


I finally found some parts that I needed to convert it to manual. A couple months ago I found a manual trans (w55 I think) and some pedals out a 2wd truck. I don't know the year of the truck but it came with the basic parts that I needed. I drilled new holes for the clutch master and modified the 2 brake pedal brackets to fit. Just need to find some extra $ so I can get the flywheel resurfaced, buy a clutch, slave , and master cylinder.

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Apple Cider Vinegar (ACV)

02/17/2010-A friend was telling me about taking ACV daily and how it is supposed to be a wonder "drug". So I Googled it and researched it and it just sounds to good to be true. So after some time deliberating (5min) I've decided to try it. I will try to keep everyone posted as I do this.

I will purchase some ACV tomorrow at lunch and start then. I was thinking I would start pretty slow, the recommended recipe is 2 teaspoons per 16 oz. water sipped through out the day. I was thinking on starting with about 2 teaspoons to 50 oz of water due to the size of my water bottle.

This will be an ongoing project until either I get bored or it doesn't work. And hopefully it will be beneficial for me and entertaining to some of you!!!

02/18/2010 DAY 1/2
Well went to the local natural food store today on my lunch break. I got a small bottle of Bragg Apple cider vinegar. I had about half of my large water bottle left and added some to it. It tasted ok I guess, not as bad as I thought so I think I can drink it. After running errands and making back to work on time I had about 1/3 of the bottle left so I refilled it with water and no ACV. By 4pm when I finished work, I had less than a 1/4 left and that was gone by 5.

So far no results, but what would I expect with only half a day invested. I'll try and keep posting daily to log any noticeable differences.

02/18/09 DAY2
Woke up this morning pretty good actually. I really worked hard yesterday and expected to feel it this morning but woke up to very little stiffness and pain. Although I felt a little "laggy" if that makes sense? It almost felt like I couldn't get the pace up. I drank another bottle and a half of water/ACV today. Other than that nothing new to report.

Looking forward to posting more tomorrow.


on some of the benefits of taking ACV.


  • Reduce sinus infections and sore throats
  • Balance high cholesterol
  • Cure skin conditions such as acne
  • Protect against food poisoning
  • Fight allergies in both humans and animals
  • Prevent muscle fatigue after exercise
  • Strengthen the immune system
  • Increase stamina
  • Increase metabolism which promotes weight loss
  • Improve digestion and cure constipation
  • Alleviate symptoms of arthritis and gout
  • Prevents bladder stones and urinary tract infections

2/19/2010 Day2
Well ok, I woke to some mad pain. I guess it could be due to the cold (low 60's Hawaii BTW). Either that or it just caught up to me. Been pretty tired last couple days. Not sure if it is the ACV or just tired. I'm still working on todays bottle of "mix". I guess it could be that too. I'm going to try finish this bottle and work on another one later. I was also thinking about changing my regiment over from a day long program to a 3X a day system. I've read 2 tbsp for 8oz, but was thinking maybe 1tbsp in some juice. Either that or reducing my mixture so its easier to drink.

Well I'll keep you guys updated!!!

02/20/2010 DAY3
Took a break from ACV today so nothing new to update.

02/21/2010 DAY4
I took 2tbsp in my juice at breakfast, and another 2 just now (5:20pm). Today was a good day nothing new to post. If I wake up tomorrow not aching I guess its working. I think that I may have not been taking enough, because when I drink less than usual I notice that I ache more. I think I may just take it at meals. Its easier and I think I get better doses.

02/22/2010 Day 5
Been taking it at meals now and its much easier. Also found out that you can't taste it if added to white cherry Poweraide. Worked pretty strenuous today so well see if I'm in pain tomorrow morning.

This blog is going to start slowing down. I'm probably not going to update in much detail unless I notice something. Sorry



Salty pork and really salty chuck roast

So for the superbowl, we were planning to do a "big game party" at our house. I have been wanting to do a kalua pork (pork cooked in an underground "oven" - similar to pulled pork) and smoked brisket for a while. Unfortunately, I don't own an imu (underground oven) or a smoker. Of course, that wasn't going to stop me.

About 3 days before the Superbowl, I got the ingredients that I thought I needed to make the dishes. I bought a 5 pound piece of pork shoulder and a 4 pound cut of chuck roast. I intended to do a brisket but I changed my mind because I was hoping the chuck roast would be easier to do. I also picked up some coarse salt (Hawaiian salt), pans, foil, and charcoal.

I brought everything home and planned my brine. I found a bunch of conflicting information about brining beef but I thought I would try it anyway. Online, there are a bunch of resources regarding preparing meat for smoking and I would suggest you go there before attempting your own smoked beef or pork. I decided to both brine and cure my beef. For the pork, it would just be a brine.

Beef - Put garlic salt, coarse salt, pepper and honey. Placed all of these in a ziploc bag with water. The picture doesn't really show how much salt was used. I put waaaaay too much salt. I placed the beef in the fridge for 2 days flipping it once.

Pork - The pork was done similar to the beef except I only used salt to season. Salt and water in a ziploc bag and refrigerated it as a brine for 3 days flipping it twice.

After two days of brining I removed the beef from the refrigerator and took it out of the ziploc bag. To prep it for curing, I rinsed the beef and dried it with paper towels. I placed the beef in a dry aluminum pan and covered it with salt. It was put back in the fridge for half a day. I then turned it over and let it sit for another half a day.



Early Sunday morning, I prepped the grill for the smoking. I started the fire, put a pan with water next to the coals and let the grill heat up. My intent was to have the grill hot enough to boil the water so it was like a steamed piece of meat with the flavor of charcoal and wood. The mesquite wood was placed in water for about 15 minutes and put on the charcoal to create the smoke.

When the fire and smoke was going strong, I put the pork on the grill. I tried to rotate the pork every 20 minutes or so. My goal was to sear the meat with the charcoal and smoked mesquite
flavor. After about an hour, I put the pork in a crock pot for about 4 hours. People kept telling me that I could've used liquid smoke. I kind of wish I did one version with the liquid smoke and one with
out to see if the flavor was different.




After the pork was put in the crock pot, it was time for the beef. It was removed from the pan, rinsed clean and dried with some paper towels.


It was placed on the grill in the configuration as shown. Controlling the temperature was really difficult, but I managed to keep it within 220 degrees for about 3 hours. After the 3rd hour, the roast was wrapped loosely in foil and placed in an aluminum pan with some boiling water in it. I then covered the whole pan with aluminum. The goal was to steam the meat in the pan.



After the beef was done, we ended up with a cooked chuck roast and shredded pork.

The chuck roast tasted really salty. I repeat... REALLY SALTY. I put it in water and crock pot it for another 20 minutes to get some of the salt out. In the end, it tasted like a smoked chuck roast. I was kind of disappointed.


The shredded pork was salty as well, but not as bad. It was pretty good. When I do it again, I am planning to use less salt and try and smoke it with taro leaves. Hopefully it will soak up some of the green leafy taste so it will taste more "Hawaiian."

The heat control was pretty challenging for the beef. The chuck was a little drier than I had wanted but it wasn't as bad as it could have been. Fortunately, I had just come off my week long veggietox so it tasted like prime rib to me. In conclusion, I am still not ready to tackle a brisket but a veggietox is the best way to make bad meat taste good.

Monday, February 8, 2010

One Week Veggietox (Veggie Detox)

So earlier this year, I was talking to a relative and he was mentioning that he went on a one week water detox. He talked about how hard it was, but he also talked about how hard it wasn't. He said that at the end of the week, he felt more limber, his complexion felt less oily, and he just felt cleaner.
I was sold. I wanted to try it. But it seemed like his lifestyle was more conducive to a week-long starvation than mine. It seemed like a really good challenge though. What to do?

Aha! I know what I would do. I will modify it. Instead of a water diet, I'll just eat veggies for one whole week. (I don't like veggies.) I will make it just as simple, but not quite as challenging.

RULES: The rules of my veggietox were that I was only going to allow myself to eat raw fruits and vegetables. Nothing processed, cooked, or artificially flavored. How hard can that be?

I looked at the calendar for a week where I had no weekly obligations. About a month away, I noticed January 31 through February 5th would be a good veggietox week. It was on.

The week before the veggietox, I started "training." I limited my diet to lighter foods. More veggies, less heavy meats, and a lot more water. By the end of the week, I felt ready. I bought some veggies from the local supermarket and took them home for my experiment. I got enough for about 3 days of fasting. I figured that I would know by day 3 if I will make it or not.

January 30 - Went to my sister's house because my parents were visiting. Ate everything that I was going to go without that night. Noodles, rice, meat, etc. As the night closed in on the midnight hour, I had a couple of snacks but when midnight rang, I didn't touch any of them anymore.

Day 1 - I left my sister's house excited about the week to come. I thought this would be easy. I went to sleep and woke up at around 9:30AM. "Good", I thought. I slept through a good chunk of the morning. Less veggies to eat today. I check my food rations. I had a leftover bunch of lettuce that I could eat. I like lettuce, that would be a good start. I eat whatever lettuce is in the fridge which is about 10 or so leaves. Calorie count = negligable. Still, it was crisp and cool and it wasn't that difficult. This is going to be easy.

I go to my sister's house again as my parents are still visiting. There are apples and grapes on the counter. Awesome! I eat the fruits heartily. Not hungry yet, I feel satisfied. The rest of the day seems a blur.

Day 2 - First day at work. This is the real test. Just remember... Drink plenty of water.
First meal = banana. After I finish the banana, I open my carrots. I eat carrots for the next 2 hours or so until lunch. For lunch I go to the San Francisco Salad Company and I get a spinach salad with apples. The apples are too tart but the spinach is awesome. I eat that. The rest of the day, I eat carrots. This is easy. I don't feel weak, I feel great in fact. My afternoon snack, I eat a tangerine. A very good tangerine in fact.

Day 3 - I decide to add celery to my midmorning meal. I eat a banana, celery, carrots, salad, and a tangerine again. Again this feels great. For dinner, we go to Kakaako Kitchen (a local restaurant). Unfortunately there is nothing that fits my veggietox. I eat stuff off my girlfriend's salad.

Day 4 - Same as day 3. I eat a banana, celery, carrots, and a tangerine. I try to eat bean sprouts for my midmorning snack but it had a weird texture to it and I threw them out. I didn't have time for a salad today. I still feel pretty good but I am missing the taste of cooked food. For dinner, I eat a house salad from Zippys (a local restaurant). We go to Costco to buy more veggies. I buy a veggie platter that I ration off for the rest of the week.

Day 5 - I eat my banana for breakfast. This is the highlight of my day. I bring cherry tomatoes that I plan to eat for my snack. It is waaaay too tart. I stop eating that and I go to my second package of food - cauliflower. Just to let you know, raw cauliflower sucks. I eat about 6 or 7 small pieces of that and 3 pieces of broccoli. I didn't have time to get lunch today but I go outside of the office looking for something. The smell of the cooked food around me smells so good that I can't imagine eating veggies from anywhere. I just go back to the office and eat the rest of my carrots.
For dinner we go to a bowling alley. Bowling alleys are like bars. They serve fried food. Delicious fried foods. I am feeling really weak. I eat a house salad and a pear. My girlfriend eats french fries and saimin. It smelled so good.
Side note: On day 5, my girlfriend said that my eyes looked yellow. I checked online and I may have a mild case of B12 deficiency.

Day 6 - Almost there. I realized yesterday that I lost my track. Up to this point, I had lost about 7 or 8 pounds at least and it had become a diet. My intent was to veggietox. Not to diet. I tell myself I would eat a lot today. I eat the same foods (carrots, salad, tangerine, and watermelon). I am back on track. I put a couple of cucumber slices on the salad and it tasted like ash. Everything is starting to taste weird.
We go to Bad Ass Coffee Company to watch Pete and Kelly Stuck in the 80's (highly recommended. Super fun to watch). My friend tells me that I look orange or yellow and that I look sickly. I tell her I am veggietoxing and that I am probably low on B12.

Day 7 - The last day. I wake up around 10AM and I am feeling weak. We go to Big City Diner and there isn't much on the menu I can eat. I eat a house salad. I don't feel satisfied. I would rather eat my girlfriend's Paniolo Chicken Salad. After "brunch" we go to Toys n Joys. I step out of the car and feel woozy. I need something to eat. I go to 7-11 and pick up a banana. It doesn't help.
We go back home because I am afraid I am going to pass out. I eat an apple and some carrots. I am feeling better now. It is around 2PM and the countdown to midnight begins.

5PM (7 hours to go) - My original thought was to pick up some fast food and bring it home for my celebratory feast but I changed my mind and decided to eat my favorite food - fried chicken. We plan to go to Anna Millers, eat my fried chicken there and have a dessert after.

8PM (4 hours to go) - I have an awesome, colon cleansing, body lightening experience. One week of nothing but raw fruits and veggies have just left me.. (sorry, too much information?)

10PM (2 hours to go) - Why is the time moving so slowly? Are we running in basketball time? Where 1 minute ends up being 15 minutes in real time? I am soooo craving real food. Plus, almost all of my carrots are gone! I'm watching the Blue Mountain State marathon on Spike. The food commercials are killing me.

11:30PM (30 minutes to go) - I was planning to leave the house at 11:45, but I can't wait. I figure by the time I get to the restaurant, get seated, and order my food, it will easily be midnight. We leave the house.

11:40PM (20 minutes to go) - What the?! Where was the traffic?! We are here early. Thats okay, it is a Saturday night, there is probably a waiting list to get in.

11:42PM (18 minutes to go) - OK.. No line.. We are seated already. It is still kind of busy. Maybe we can order and it will take 15 minutes for the food to show up. At least the waitress isn't here yet. That will kill some time.... "Why hello.. Can I take your order?" Dammit.. She is here. I order my fried chicken, portuguese bean soup, and cornbread.

Maybe the food will take 15 minutes to get here.

11:50 (10 minutes to go) - Soup and cornbread arrives. It smells sooo good. I gotta stare at it for another 10 minutes.

11:55 (5 minutes to go) - Fried chicken shows up. Dammit! 5 more minutes. I gotta go to the bathroom or something. I leave for a minute.

4 minutes to go - I come back and stare at my food.... and my watch. Why wasn't there one more red light on the way over? Damn you temptation!

3 minutes to go - .......

2 minutes to go - I start looking over the desserts to figure out what I want to eat after I eat this meal Scooby Doo or Cookie Monster style.

1 minute to go - Hurry please!

Midnight - YES!

12:15AM - Done...
I order a chocolate haupia pie.

12:20AM - Finish dessert. I feel sick now.

CONCLUSION: This was a worthwhile experience. I didn't feel the benefits my relative talked about when he did his week of water detox though. I felt less bogged down and "cleaner" after the week though. I realized that if I needed to do this again, I could. I would supplement a multivitamin though. I DID cheat 4 times though - I mistakenly ate roasted nuts and olives. I also drank protein twice. Even though I had about 500 total calories per day, I did not feel as weak or sluggish as I thought I would feel. I would suggest something like this to anyone who wants to challenge themselves but are worried about doing a pure detox. Make sure you supplement though. I was worried about the comments my friends were saying about my skin and eyes at the end of the week.

In the end, I lost at least 10 pounds. The day I finished was Super Bowl Sunday and when I weighed myself on Monday, I had gained back about 5 pounds. I am assuming that accounts for water weight and probably some muscle loss. I went to the gym twice during this time and I felt lightheaded once. My strength loss was prevalent but minimal considering the type of diet I was on. (I can normally do like 225 lb good mornings but only managed a difficult 205 lb on Thursday) I also didn't feel mentally fatigued, stressed, or dumber. Although my girlfriend said I was weirder than usual.

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

The Big Ice Cream Cookie Sandwich

This past New Years, I made a big ice cream cookie. It is a throwback from the ice cream cookies my mom used to make when I was growing up. Difference is, she used store bought, "regular sized" cookies. Mine was about a foot in diameter and used a whole half gallon of ice cream.

I used two (rolls?) of chocolate chip cookie dough and a half gallon of ice cream.




Greased the pan and spread the cookie dough on the baking pan.





Baked the cookie in the oven. I was nervous about this because I never baked cookies before
Especially one around 1 foot in diameter.




After the cookies were done, I shoveled a half gallon of ice cream between the two cookies, wrapped it in plastic wrap and placed it in the freezer. The cookie pretty much fed us for two days straight.